Yesterday, a @CDCMMWR report was published in which I along with other @seattleflustudy investigators contributed as co-authors. The @seattleflustudy data were critical to assessment of early spread of #COVID19 in Washington State and the US. cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6… 1/5
I do want to clarify one detail about timeline. As described previously, retrospective testing of 6908 @seattleflustudy specimens collected from acute respiratory infections in Jan and Feb identified a first positive on Feb 21. 2/5
Ignoring the @seattleflustudy "WA2" specimen, the first hint of community transmission in Washington State came from the announcement of a death on Feb 29. cdc.gov/media/releases… 3/5
Had community surveillance been active a week earlier, the Feb 21 sample would have been prospectively identified rather than retrospectively identified. A sample collected on Feb 21 would have been tested on Feb 22. 4/5
Thus, in this case, active community surveillance of ~100 acute respiratory specimens per day would have bought a 7 day awareness gain over a system without active community surveillance that relies on mortality to trigger testing. 5/5
